It had led Kingsley to re-evaluate the nature of the threat he’d once perceived. Honestly, since the attacks hadn’t escalated, it didn’t seem like mages would risk waging a full-scale attack on them after all. It made Kingsley wonder—and his top shifters with him—if the enemy actually had the resources to take on a pack of Kingsley’s size. It didn’t seem so from the last grouping of months.
Except that mage earlier had been telling the absolute truth as he knew it. His body language had made that perfectly clear. Jessie had been obviously worried, as well, no better at hiding her feelings.
Kingsley needed to think. He needed a second.
He excused himself from James and made his way home, his mind still in turmoil as he parked and then made his way to the front door, letting himself in.
“I’ve been calling you—where have you been?” Earnessa said, walking into the foyer with her hair in curlers and wearing a robe. “The pizza oven needs to be started, and you promised to help set up the food stations. I don’t know what sort of things your brother’s mate would like, and I never seem to get it right when it comes to your grandma.”
He shook his head as he pushed past her. “I had a run-in with Austin.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where he pulled his wallet and keys out of his pocket and dropped them on the edge of the counter. She whisked them away immediately, opening the drawer in front of her and depositing them inside.
“What sort of run-in?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “I thought you said he’s changed.”
“He has. He’s more confident now. He’s grown into the leader he always had the potential to be.”
She popped out a hip, leaning heavily on the counter. “What does that mean? You don’t think he’s going to challenge for placement and remove you, do you?”
He could hear the worry in her voice. She’d never trusted Austin, not before he’d challenged and almost killed Kingsley, and certainly not after. The fear that Austin would take over the pack and displace Kingsley and his family had haunted her. Haunted all of them, maybe.
Now, here he was again, stronger and better than ever, ready to lead a large pack.
“I don’t know,” Kingsley said, peeling off his suit jacket and putting it on a nearby chair. “If he challenges me, he’ll win. There is no question. His gargoyle beta—lead enforcer—would even be a hard battle for me. That gargoyle would dominate James, no problem. And I hear Austin has a shifter beta who used to be an alpha. As small as Austin’s outfit is, it’s stacked.”
“But I thought you said he had his own territory,” Earnessa pushed as she started taking things out of the fridge. “I thought you said he was happy where he was and wouldn’t want this territory.”
“I’d thought that, yes. I still think it. But the way he pushed back on me today…” Kingsley gripped the edges of the counter. “I don’t get the feeling he’s going to play submissive even though I’m the alpha of this territory. He’s going to fight me on each decision, and Jessie isn’t always going to be there to calm him down.”
“You were submissive to him when you visited him, though, weren’t you? You followed protocol?”
“Yes. And I’m realizing now that it wasn’t hard. What is hard, however, is puffing myself up as more dominant when we both know I am not.”
Earnessa was quiet for a moment. “If he challenges…he’ll stop before he kills you, right? He won’t get so mad he can’t stop?”
Kingsley let out a breath, turned, and pulled her into a hug. “I’ll be okay. I don’t think he’d kill me.” Kingsley hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Not again. “I just worry about his taking over for the coming attack. My job as alpha is to keep life as normal as possible for everyone. I don’t want our pack to become a war zone if it doesn’t need to be. I’m worried he’ll finish the job he started when he left and tear our territory apart.”
EIGHT
Jessie
I DID a quick last check in the mirror and then changed my mind about the necklace.
Austin had said to look semi-dressy but casual and have some bling but not go overboard. Which was all well and good, but without the Ivy House crew around, I had to dress myself, something I’d never excelled at. My ex would constantly tell me that I was too formal, or too casual, or wearing black to this particular luncheon was all wrong. I’d always had to go “run and put something a little more appropriate on.”